Character Outlining 101- How I Outline the Mentor

The mentor can be a complicated character to write. Finding a mentor for your protagonist can be a complicated business in the first place, and then on top of all that they have to be a fully fleshed-out character while being somehow wiser than the protagonist is.

But fret not. I have just the tools to help you build a good one. Let's go!

I don't know about you, but my favorite mentors are the ones that are unexpected.

The little red dragon who is determined to help Mulan succeed and prove his own worth at any cost. The guy in the mountains who helped Batman reach his fullest potential before (*SPOILERS*) ultimately becoming the villain. The fallen demigod set on getting back his magic hook and redeeming his standing with the gods. Those mentors.

The unexpected, imperfect, beautifully flawed mentors.

Unfortunately, I have no surefire tips for helping you identify who your mentor other than this: Who helps your protagonist move forward and who does your protagonist look to for help?

Once you've identified who your mentor is, you can move on to the questionnaire. We'll start with the same questions as always:

Name
Age
Appearance

If you like, at this point you can include the About section. For a mentor, the amount of information you need to know about them will vary depending on how important they are in the story and how much time on the page they will get. But whether or not you choose to include the About section and whether or not your mentor is going to get a lot of spotlight time, I would definitely include a section for each of the following:

Talents, Abilities, and Powers(and how good they may be at teaching any of them)
How their relationships are(how close are they with the protagonist? With other characters? Are they comfortable with showing affection? How do they show affection? How do they receive it?)
Moral Alignment

All of these will relate to what they teach the protagonist, how they'll teach the protagonist, and how well. And finally, before our wrapup questions, answer this question:

What will prevent them from helping the protagonist?

This is the most important part of outlining your mentor. A mentor character has to have something holding them back from doing everything the hero should be doing because without such an obstruction, they will just take the protagonist's place as hero and probably do a better job than the protagonist ever would(especially since they have so much more expertise).

I plan on writing a full post on this topic later in the month, but here are a few ideas here for now:

1. Lack of motivation. Maui from Moana is the mentor, but he doesn't want to save the world. He's only roped in on the journey because Moana makes him come.
2. Inability. Some mentors are physically too old to be doing the things the hero is doing. Or there are other physical obstructions. I mentioned Mushu earlier. Mushu can't save China because he is a tiny dragon and would probably get stepped on.
3. Death. This one's common and normally a bit of a cop-out, but sometimes a mentor is just too useful and has to die in order to cease his usefulness.

With your mentor successfully kept from stealing the limelight, you can proceed to the wrapup questions. If you mentor doesn't show up except for just a cameo at the beginning (cough Glinda the Good cough), you'll only need to answer the last one, but if your mentor is an important character, definitely answer them all.

What is their central flaw?

What is the lie they believe that causes that flaw?

What is the ghost from their past that caused them to believe that lie?

What is the want that drives them in this story? (what makes them choose to teach the protagonist these things?)


And that's all! This is the final post in this series on outlining characters. If you haven't read any of the others in this series, here are the links:

Main Characters/Overall
Antagonists
Secondary Characters

The post following this one(it will be later today actually) will have the links to all the posts, as well as the promised PDF that you can print up and use as a worksheet for your full cast of characters!

Other than the post following this one with the PDF in it, there will be no second post this week because Thursday, the day I normally put up my second post, is my birthday! :)

Have a great week, and outline the heck out of those characters! I believe in you!!